Team Problem Solving Final at Imperial College – 29/3/17

Six teams arrived at Imperial from all parts of the country. On arrival they were presented with a selection of chess problems as a warm-up for the serious business to be attempted in the afternoon. Former World Champion problem solver Jonathan Mestel (double GM) entertained the problem solvers and the Senior Team Challenge participants with a talk about some complex problems (from his article in The Problemist). He explained clearly about the systematic way of analysing and solving the positions. Clearly a talented speaker he kept an audience of 100 young chess players entranced for over an hour. An excellent lunch followed and the teams got down to the serious business of the day.

The opening round is normally a warm up with three mates-in-one to find, and so it proved, with all six teams scoring 100%. The second round (Two Movers) proved a nightmare for Hymers College (Hull) who failed to find any of the key moves, whilst all the other teams continued their perfect scores. Round Three saw holders Kings edge into a narrow lead – however this was overturned by The Judd School in Round 4. Entering the last round there were five possible winners. A superb performance in the last round saw St. Paul’s snatch the title by 0.5 from The Judd School, with the young players from Heathside Prep school finishing a in creditable third place. A mere 7 points covered the first 5 teams.

Special thanks to the British Problem Society who provided an adjudicator (Nigel Dennis ) and a problem setter (Brian Stephenson). The final scores were as follows

1st St. Pauls; 2nd The Judd School; 3rd Heathside Prep; 4th Chepstow School; 5th The King’s School; 6th Hymers College

Solutions – Round 2 – click here [posted 22/12/16]
Leader Board (score out of a maximum of 9) – congratulations to all the schools on this leader board, who have qualified for the final!

First round perfect solutions received from –

Hymers College, Hull; Yarm School, Stockton-on-Tees; Sevenoaks School; The Judd School (Kent); Heathside Prep; Chepstow School; King’s School, Grantham; St Paul’s School; Oundle School

Click here to find the solutions for the first round for yourselves!

Contact: Phill Beckett Email: dep.manager.secondary@englishchess.org.uk

This unique competition is mainly conducted at school’s own premises. The idea is  find the key moves which deliver mate in the stated number of moves. There are two preliminary rounds and any team that scores full marks in both rounds will be offered a place at the final to be held in conjunction with the team challenge at Imperial College on 29^th March 2017. We do hope that you will have a go.